Hope for Tomorrow
by headphone frenzy
Summary: She was always aware of this abnormalty she possesed, and now, many years after it all started, she's looking back and realizing 'I have to be strong'. Maylene-centric. AU. One shot.


Hope for tomorrow.

Headphone does not own.

(x)

She had almost seen this coming, but would never admit it.

It was Monday, it was raining, and nothing was going right.

Her mother, as patient and loving as she was, wasn't at home. This was the first siren, but it was almost entirely ignored.

The old coot she called her Father wasn't there either, but that was to be expected, right? That old man was more often then not at the casinos and game corners then he was at home, and when he was at home, he smelled like alcohol, vomit, and cheap cigarettes.

But, she just couldn't figure out where her mother had gone off to. Was she with her father at the casino? Unlikely, considering the last time she went there she ended up getting upset and then they had to go to the hospital.

That night was so frightfully scary, she, the unknowing girl with the currently missing parents, couldn't erase the searing, hateful, completely and utterly terrifying look on her gambling-obsessed fathers face as he cradled a broken lip, his hand clenching the steering wheel like it was the only thing keeping him from lashing out, from striking back as she asked him 'where's mommy? Where is she, Daddy?'

She felt so stupid back then, and she still felt stupid.

It had never occurred to her back then the immense weight of her words, but years later, she had fully realized what she had spoken, and how much pain it must have caused her frantic, pathetically upset Father.

He never responded, simply kept his strictly slanted and sleepless-looking eyes of pitch black on the winding road, and the girl in the backseat could see him visibly shudder, almost trying to ignore her and her innocent question. It was a completely unknowing, perfectly acceptable question, but with the way that her old man was at the moment, she couldn't have felt any more wrong, and she quickly shut up.

She thought this was what it felt to be completely and utterly wrong, without even knowing what she had done that caused this reaction in her gut.

Though, later in her life, when she saw her house completely empty, when she knew that her Mother should have been waiting for her after-school return, she knew that what she had thought was the worst, most completely awful feeling was nothing close to the pain she felt in the emptiness of her house. At that exact moment, she remembered all of the fights she had overheard during the middle of the night, all of the incidences and drives to the hospital over this that the other.

She remembered it all quiet well, and she simply fell to her knees, covering her ears from the truth that tried to sneak into it. 'Hate', 'pain', and 'loneliness' were just a few of the words that sounded in her ears, slamming her ear drums to the point that it physically hurt her.

There she sat, in the middle of the living room, the empty house spoon-feeding her the truth forcefully, almost wanting her to just give up and cry, to realize all of the pain and agony that she's been ignoring for all however-many years of her existence. She was good at ignoring things, lying to herself and saying it was all okay as she drove to the hospital in the middle of the night because her father had 'ran into a wall and hurt himself, chipping his yellowed teeth and probably his skull.'

She never once went to the hospital with her mother.

She was truly grateful for that, as she willowed away, her eyes pooling up in a puddle of salty tears as she tried ignored the emptiness of her house, the emptiness of her stomach and heart. 'This is all just me being paranoid' she thought to herself, forcing a smile and forcing herself to stand, wobbly feet holding her up with much protest. 'Mom just went to the store to get some milk. Yeah, that's it. She's going to be coming right back.'

Though, the thing is, her mother never came back.

She never again saw her mother's beautiful hair, gentle eyes that held a sad sort of patience in them, or even the way her mouth curved upward when the young girl had done something amusing.

Several years later, however, after the trips to the hospitals and the screaming in the middle of the night had stopped, the girl had finally been able to come to terms with it.

Though, every year, on one day of the whole year, she felt regret, remorse, and any form of sadness possible, willow away her gut, forcing her to stay silent just in case she said something that sent her into hysterics. This particular day, was the day her mother left, the day where she felt the need to just curl herself up into a ball and forget everything and anything existed besides herself and the mother she had trouble remembering after the first year. They hadn't had enough money to get pictures, so she had to rely on memories, and even then the majority of them were sad ones.

One particular year, after she had become a sophomore and was champion of the boxing, and kick boxing, team, she had been reminded, all too rudely. Someone was poking fun of her, an asshole of a freshman, and he kept on calling her an 'orphan', or other such derogatory terms that made her the pit of her stomach burn with rage and depression, all of it melding into one as she fought off tears. After all, she wasn't about to admit this jack ass, ignoramus, _lower classman_ the pleasure of seeing her break, sobbing eyes and have herself shot down as 'weak'.

She refused to be 'weak'.

She refused to be pushed around by every other human being on the planet because she couldn't stand for herself.

Because she didn't want to be like her Father, who did nothing about her mother's disappearance but gamble as though he really had money to waste, drink like every liquor store was going out of business, and try to kill his lungs quicker with stronger, cheaper, cigarettes that were filled with black tobacco and arsenic. She didn't want to be the one to simply wish her mother would return, she refused to sit back and believe she could do nothing about it. So, after long hours of jogging until her legs buckled, kicking sandbags till the fabric tore, and punching rubber-made dummies until their faces weren't visible she decided to make a name for herself, forcing it to the public so that maybe, once her Mother saw her name, she would return, and finally explain why she left, why she was never home anymore.

Or maybe, the girl without a Mother was just doing it to distract herself, take her mind off the fact that she didn't honestly know the woman who placed her into the world. Maybe it really all just was something to take her mind off things; though she didn't delude herself from one small fact: the few days of the week where she could forget about her situation were the days she strived for, hoping some day that every day would be like that.

Though, this day, a rainy Monday where everything was going wrong, was one of the days in which she couldn't ignore the facts, she couldn't delude herself from the truth and reality.

This day was spoon-feeding her the truth of everything and anything, slowing but surely cramming it all into her mouth before she unintentionally drowned herself to death.

She could feel herself breaking.

First in watery halves, then in unsure chunks, slowly but surely crumbling into a state of loneliness, discontent, and depression.

Two of her friends came up to her, one of them being a dorky boy with auburn hair and glasses as thick as pencil lead, and a girl with dual braids the shade of charcoal and an appreciation for mornings like no one else the bullied girl knew. They quickly told off the freshman, the boy making it his goal to tell off the boy with as few vulgarities as possible as the black haired girl took to comforting her friend, saying that it was 'alright' and that no one 'understood' but them.

The girl probably knew she was just spouting B.S. and that a lot of other people in the school knew the pain to only have one parent who hardly loved them, but she kept quiet and let herself be calmed down, only to spike back up again. A flood suddenly washed over her face, wetting her cheeks as she felt her mouth clench tight, trying to stifle the pain that she wanted to express.

"It's okay, Maylene. It's okay."

Her friend probably realized that she was lying, and that it actually was _not_ okay that she didn't have what she needed, whether it was for school or simply the emotion of feeling loved. The girl, wrapping her arms daintily to force her friends head into her shoulder, felt so sorry for her, not because she didn't have a mother, but because she had known the woman who gave birth to her long enough to fully register on her, and then left when she hit her prime year's right before becoming a pre-teen.

"We're here for you;_ I'm_ here for you. You shouldn't bottle up your emotions all the time; it's really not healthy, y'know?"

The sobbing girl knew the boy's words were genuine, because she could hear the rare shakiness that his voice held, vibrating slowly within his throat before unsurely surfacing as audible noise. She knew that they both meant well, and that she couldn't force it upon them all the time to deal with her when some prick decided to use her for his daily entertainment.

She had to be stronger then that.

She had to show them, the people that doubted her strength and her determination to improve and grow as a person and as a fighter that she wouldn't be pushed around.

It was Monday, it was raining, and she felt something inside of herself growing stronger, pushing the hurt and depression out of her mind.

She was sure of it.

(x)

I, I really do like Maylene. She's a very cute character, y'know? Though, I don't like Roark x Maylene. In all honesty, I find Maylene x Candice to be cute, but because Roark is a dorky teen who's going through puberty, he's probably got feelings for about 8 different people. (Volkner, Maylene, Riley, Volkner, Gardenia, Volkner, Ash, Volkner.) (If you can't tell, I like Roark x Volkner AKA Energyshipping.)

Yeah, I'm not sure if I like this or not.

Reviews?


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